I have two flash drive, one with Slax installed and another for Android x86 Live installed, but they do not boot in my laptop (in my work they boot perfectly).

I can boot from some live CDs/DVDs or its ISO files using VirtualBox, but I cannot do it for live flash drives - I put the flash drives and start a VirtualBox without any virtual HD, but VirtualBox does not recognize them as boot options, as it does for CDs/DVDs.

Any ideas? Any alternatives if VirtualBox does not support it?

Edit1: I'm using Windows (Windows 7) but I would like to know how to do it in Linux (Ubuntu, for example) too.

You can try this boot manager... plop.at/en/bootmanager.html. If you extract the file archive, you'll find a plpbt.iso file that you can set as your boot medium. This will give a bootloader with the usb option. If your vm is correctly configured for usb (you may need to disable 2.0 support), and your usb stick is already correctly configured (ie, it has a bootable os installed, and you know that it works), then it should boot in the vm.
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Joe InternetAug 3 '11 at 4:36

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@JoeInternet: Unfortunately Plop doesn't seem to work with USB 2.0, so it'll be very slow.
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Mechanical snailAug 21 '12 at 7:59

The approach is to attach a physical drive to a virtual machine using the VBoxManage command-line tool that comes bundled with VirtualBox. You can then boot your virtual machine from the attached Physical drive.

Alternatively, and only for Windows, Linux Live USB Creator (formerly uSbuntu) is a free software for Windows that allows you to create a bootable Live USB key with a Linux on it.
It offers the option of automatic virtualization using portable VirtualBox to directly run Linux in Windows without any configuration nor installation.

You are really a superuser!!!! Thanks :) Details: in Windows 7, you have to run cmd commands and VirtualBox as administrator!
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kokbiraAug 12 '11 at 16:55

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@harrymc: For Linux, the guide you linked isn't clear that you have to run VirtualBox as root (!), or alternatively add your user account to the disk group. This is of course a possible security risk.
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Mechanical snailAug 21 '12 at 7:58

I know this question is old but I'd like to throw something in. As with other answers I recommend the VBoxManage command.

However I created a bash script for Ubuntu that simplifies the command and even offers a helpful walkthrough for less comfortable users. It'll help make any changes needed for USB mounting to work (like adding group membership). Advanced users can use flags to avoid the walkthrough.

according to harrymc's source: you can not set up to boot from USB in the GUI, however, you can create a special virtual disk that only "redirects" to your physical usb pendrive, and attach that. here is the windows way (only, link contains it for linux too).

in windows host

attach your physical usb pendrive to your host computer

open/run diskmgmt.msc and check which disk number did windows choose for your physical pendrive: